You are momentarily suffused with light. It is as if everything you do suddenly has meaning, not only in your own perceptions but in the eyes of others. You gather attention to you as you've never done before. You command those around you. It is an uncomfortable sensation at first, illuminating the space you occupy and shedding your illumination on all you approach and touch.

When I first joined the rescue squad, I envied those probationary members who were preparing for their aidman exam. Their light was powerful, gravitational, and received the focused attention of the other members. They were breaking through their old skin, tearing loose from uselessness, being forged into something decisive and keen.

Now it's me who's afire. On Monday I went in to the rescue squad in my bedraggled uniform, my old familiar skin, to take my written exam. Most folks know I'm in the midst of this rite of passage, and they alternately wish me luck and assure me that I'm ready. Many have watched me as I rode extra on their night crews, gaining experience, practicing and preparing, testing out new muscles. I begin to believe that they might know my prospects for passing better than I do myself. I am too tired to know myself very well right now, or pay much attention to anything but what I'm doing.

I pass the written exam. My sense of relief is intense, but lasts less than an hour. I call my night crew Lieutenant to give him the good news, and he soon shows up at the squad to help me prepare for the second part of the exam, the orals and practicals, which will be held Wednesday. I am the focus of more attention than I've ever been at the squad, and what I most want is for it all to be over. I want this light around me to fade, this supernatural illumination to be replaced by the obscurity of being human. I am ready to pass through perigee and orbit out into the darker space beyond, casting a different shadow.

At home I wash my uniform, just my uniform in the machine like it's something special, holy. It's like a ritual, absolving all the sleeplessness and grittiness of the preparations. I want to be spotless.

On Wednesday I come in early to check equipment and prepare my "crew". The exam consists of two parts: orals and a set of practical scenarios, in which I must direct my crew through simulated incidents. I will first take the oral part of the exam, sitting across from the aidman committee and answering whatever questions they've prepared. They can ask me anything relating to state and local protocols, squad policies, medical knowledge, specific locations within our response area, skills, and various other topics. They can review my call reports and question why I took any particular actions in them.

I am very nervous when I sit down with the committee, but the oral part of the test goes by almost before I can get my breath. Each of the four committee members asks me a set of questions, and I do not waste much time thinking about the responses. The answers come.

The committee sends me back out into the hall with all my equipment, an ambulance cot loaded down with everything I could conceivably need on the scenarios. I gather my crew together. If I'm lucky, I'll get the minimum two scenarios -- one trauma, and one medical. If I screw up one of them, but don't entirely fail, they'll give me a third. If I blow one completely, it's over. I'll have to schedule another test, and I'll have one more opportunity to pass.

The committee meets for twenty minutes or so, setting up the parameters of the scenario, deciding what the critical "fail points" will be. They leave the room and go out the back door to set things up in the back parking lot. I expect now that this will be the trauma scenario. They come to get me several minutes later.

"You're dispatched for a PIC [car wreck] on the Beltway. On arrival, you see a single car facing the wrong way in the travel lanes with significant damage to the sides and roof, and some mud and grass stuck to the roofline..." A rollover, one patient.

There's the car, with my patient sprawled in the back seat. I have a full crew and all the equipment I need. Up until this moment I have been reminding myself not to forget various things, coaching myself not to screw up, but at this moment I stop talking to myself.

Only now, the day after I passed my test, do I consider that this is one of the reasons I am drawn so keenly to the rescue squad. There are moments there that make me forget myself, when almost everything I have is directed outward in a way that I'm rarely brave enough to attempt in the real world. I need never question if what I'm doing matters. So much of what we do and say in life seems nearly meaningless, just filler for the overstimulated, but here I can act on the knowledge that nothing is wasted.

I pass the test. I am forged, new, keen. There is no ceremony, but I feel a sense of weight that nearly equals my relief that it's over. The squad officially Believes in me, and like many who undergo a rite of passage, I am a believer in the entity that has granted me its blessings. I will not fail it.

Susan and I are lying in bed, enjoying the simple sensation of vegetating peacefully in front of the TV. There's a show on in which a "psychic" is alleging to communicate with the dead relatives of members of the audience. He speaks to the mother of a murdered boy, tells her that her son wants her to let go of her grief and not seek absolution in the punishment of the killer.

Susan and I spend a moment considering whom we would most like to contact beyond the grave.

"My dad," she says without much hesitation. I ask what she would like to ask him. "Nothing much," she says, "I'd just like to say hello." Sometimes it's not the loose ends that get to us, but the terrible inability to wave a casual greeting to someone whose presence was once casual, almost meaningless, a given.

She asks whom I'd like to contact. I tell her I'd like to talk to that kid I saw die in the car wreck when I worked on the ambulance in Ohio. I would just like to tell him I'm sorry.

"There's nothing you could have done for him, though, right?" she asks.

Nothing. Nothing I could have done to save the little boy. But I'm sorry. Somehow I'll always feel like I've failed him, like I let go of his hand and lost him in a hurricane. Nothing we can do to bring back the voice of the little boy. I know that I will feel this way again, about others who are lost to us despite everything we do for them. But still, I tell myself I will not fail them. I will not fail them.